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The internal and external policies – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process in the past to current actions and statements – erode not only national and global legal frameworks. However, the issue goes deeper.

These actions threaten the fundamental meaning of civilization itself.

The ethical foundation of a functioning society is to forestall the dominant from harming and taking advantage of the weaker. Failing that, we risk being permanently immersed in a state of nature where survival of the strongest could survive.

This principle is central of the Declaration and Constitution. This is also the core of the global system established after WWII advocated by the United States, emphasizing collective action, democratic governance, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.

Yet, it is a delicate principle, easily violated by those who seek to abuse their power. Maintaining it demands that the influential have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that the public hold them accountable should they falter.

Absolute power is not right. It makes for uncertainty, chaos, and war.

Each instance entities that are richer and more powerful target and use those that are less so, the structure of civilization weakens. Should such behavior are allowed to continue, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can descend into chaos and war. It has happened before.

Today, we live in a society and world with deepening divides. Influence and wealth are increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This encourages the privileged to leverage their position against the weaker because they perceive themselves as omnipotent.

The resources of a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals is staggering. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans much of the globe. Advanced technology is could centralize economic and political clout further. The offensive capability of the leading countries is unmatched in the annals of time.

Enabled by a compliant faction and a sympathetic supreme court, the highest office has been made into the most powerful and unaccountable agent of the state in history.

Consider this confluence and you grasp the danger.

A clear connection connects earlier breaches of norms to ongoing provocations. Both were based on the arrogance of invincibility.

There is much the same in the actions of other powers: in territorial invasions, in strategic threats, and in the rampant monopolization by powerful corporate entities.

Yet, unfettered might does not make right. It fosters instability, revolution, and armed conflict.

Historical evidence demonstrates that laws and norms to constrain the influential also shield them. Absent these limits, their endless appetite for more power and wealth ultimately cause their collapse – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk global conflict.

This blatant contempt for legal order will plague America and the global community – and the very idea of a rules-based order – for the foreseeable future.